THE GREATEST DIVIDE

Racial Issues Still Polarize
Americans More
Than Anything Else

By JOHN HARWOOD AND SHAILAGH MURRAY
STAFF REPORTERS OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

To listen to the sounds coming from Washington most of the time, you'd think the most important national debates are about economic growth, taxes, health care, Social Security and war. But those aren't the issues that most deeply divide Americans.

Instead, the real emotional splits in the country lie in gut-level social issues: They are the topics that move Americans in their everyday lives, and the ones that actually draw the lines separating the two parties today.

The social issue burned most deeply in the American psyche is race. That was clear with the furor in December surrounding former Senate majority leader Trent Lott and his praise for the 1948 campaign of Sen. Strom Thurmond, who ran on a segregationist platform. And again in January, when President Bush voiced his opposition to the University of Michigan's affirmative-action admissions policy, the subject of a pending Supreme Court challenge. (Related article: At Odds on Affirmative Action.)

But the partisan divides over race are the accumulation of decades of political posturing and legislative votes by both parties-with many leading Democrats consistently advancing many causes embraced by blacks, and many leading Republicans consistently opposing them. And today, those divisions are threatening to undercut President Bush's agenda.

Race divides the two parties like no other issue. Since the days of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, blacks have consistently backed Democratic presidential candidates at rates exceeding 80%. The 2000 presidential race was dead-even only in the overall popular vote; in white America, Mr. Bush swamped Al Gore by 54% to 42%, while Mr. Gore won a 90% to 9% landslide among African-Americans.

'Wedge Issues'

President Bush has struggled mightily in his campaign to narrow the political world's divide by defining himself as a "compassionate conservative" who cares about inner-city ghettos and barrios as much as he does about upscale suburbs and rural areas. But his appeals collided with sentiments that had hardened over three decades of political conflict. That conflict began with 1960s civil-rights battles and was followed by debates over racial "wedge issues" such as school busing for desegregation, welfare, crime and affirmative action. In recent years, welfare reform, falling crime rates and economic growth have diminished the usefulness of those wedge issues. Yet their impact continues to be felt-most powerfully in the South-in every national campaign.

The extent and persistence of racial polarization upset some leading Southern Republicans. "It's such a terrible division to have," says Clarke Reed, a GOP leader in Mississippi. He says the Republican record on racial issues is "cleaner than its reputation," and says he had expected that "by now we'd have 25% to 30% of the black vote." They're not even close.

To understand why that's the case, look back several decades. The polarization of white and black voters was at the center of the swirl of political change that transformed Southern Republicans from a tiny minority to a powerful force. In 1964, President Johnson sided with Northern liberals and against Southern Democratic conservatives in backing the Civil Rights Act. His Republican presidential opponent, Barry Goldwater, opposed the civil-rights legislation.

Since then, Republicans have won the white vote in each of the nine presidential elections. Democrats have found that the African-American vote has become the absolute base of their constituency, and have worked hard each election to mobilize it by portraying Republicans as racially insensitive.

Polarized opinion benefited Republicans in the 1980s. But more recently, it has become a burden to them, as racial and ethnic minorities make up a larger proportion of the electorate. A turning point of sorts was the Republican election sweep of 1994, in which Republican California Gov. Pete Wilson won by championing a ballot initiative to deny some taxpayer-funded government services to illegal aliens. Mr. Wilson followed that victory by advocating an end to government-backed racial quotas in hiring and university admissions. But many voters-including some moderate suburban whites-ultimately came to view such appeals as mean-spirited.

As governor of Texas, George W. Bush distanced himself from Mr. Wilson's crusade, just as he did from Mr. Lott's remarks. For his party, the electoral mathematics are growing ever more challenging: By 2055, the Census Bureau estimates, whites will no longer represent a majority in the U.S. And even in 2004, Mr. Bush would be defeated for re-election if he captured the same proportion of each racial group's vote. That's because the Democratic-leaning Hispanic share will be substantially higher. (Related Article: The Surging Hispanic Economy.)

On the Record

It isn't easy, however, for Republicans to distance themselves from some parts of the party's legacy. One reason Mr. Lott was unable to shrug off his praise for Sen. Thurmond's campaign is that his legislative record is marked by opposition to many more contemporary causes of the civil-rights movement. And many important elements of that legislative record are shared by other prominent Republicans. For example:

• When legislation creating the Martin Luther King holiday passed the Senate in October 1983, first-term Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles joined Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina in opposing it. So did Charles Grassley of Iowa, now chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; Orrin Hatch of Utah, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Frank Murkowski of Alaska, who recently left the Senate to assume the governorship of Alaska. Most opponents objected to the cost of an additional holiday, although Sen. Helms opposed it because he thought Mr. King was undeserving.

• Republicans accounted for the overwhelming majority of the 90 votes cast against the King holiday in the House. Mr. Lott, a congressman at the time, was one of them. So was John McCain of Arizona, now a senator who leads the Commerce Committee; Larry Craig of Idaho, now the third-ranking GOP senator; Bill Young of Florida, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; and James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

• A few years later, Democrats in Congress pushed President Reagan to impose sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Mr. Reagan opposed sanctions-and so did Messrs. Lott and Nickles, as well as Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the new House majority leader.

• Early in Bill Clinton's presidency, African-American lawmakers pushed for a "racial justice" provision in anti-crime legislation allowing capital defendants to challenge death sentences as racially biased. Republicans, then in the minority, led the opposition that defeated the provision, arguing that it would allow decisions on capital punishment to be governed by statistics rather than the merits of individual cases.

• When Republicans took over Congress in 1995, they moved on their long-held principle that affirmative action is philosophically wrong. Rep. Charles Canady of Florida held hearings seeking to undo virtually all federal affirmative-action programs, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole sponsored a similar bill as he was launching his campaign for president.

Sen. McCain warned Republicans that their cause could be misconstrued. "As the party of Lincoln, our heritage and destiny is to be a party of all Americans," he said. "Unfortunately, in discussing the inherent contradiction and shortcomings of affirmative-action programs, the danger exists that our aspirations and intentions will be misperceived, dividing our country and harming our party."

New Generation

Fairly or not, the Lott and University of Michigan controversies have magnified that danger for Republicans. What to do about it isn't clear. For his part, Sen. Lott has stressed that economic development is the surest way ahead for minorities. What the political right doesn't want Republicans to do is cave in to attacks from liberals by abandoning their substantive positions.

Beyond that, a rising new generation of Republican leaders are focusing on issues that have little to do with race at all. Mr. Lott's replacement as majority leader, Bill Frist, was a heart surgeon before entering politics and has placed health care at the center of his agenda. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is a prominent advocate of Social Security privatization.

But even those contemporary figures can't escape the legacy of Southern racial politics, which already had resurfaced in consideration of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees from the region. Republicans fear that the Lott controversy has hurt chances for winning Senate approval of some of those nominees, such as Charles Pickering of Mississippi. Judge Pickering has been accused of racial insensitivity, highlighted by his reduction of a mandatory sentence given to a man convicted of burning a cross on an interracial couple's lawn.

While they try to avoid accusations of bias, Republicans don't have much room to maneuver. The reason is a simple one: White conservatives are the foundation of the party's electoral majority.

"There's a limit," notes Emory University political scientist Merle Black, to how much the party can move toward the center on issues concerning race. If Republicans were to abandon their opposition to affirmative-action programs, for instance, he says a significant proportion of white voters "would view that as a sell-out."